


First Contact

by servantofclio



Series: Sewers to Stars [5]
Category: Mass Effect, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 11:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8012575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A turian intelligence officer's mission starts out perfectly routine, until she runs into one of New York City's secrets.</p>
<p>Or, how the turts meet a completely friendly alien on their own turf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Contact

Flavia’s mission started out perfectly routine. 

She’d come to Earth under the guise of an ordinary turian tourist, here to see some of Earth’s great cities and natural wonders. She’d worn brightly covered civvies, snapped a million pics, asked a lot of guileless questions, and attempted to eat the dextro version of something they assured her was a local delicacy called “pizza.” New York City was one of Earth’s larger cities, and its inhabitants prided themselves on being unphased by anything, including alien visitors. She was hardly the only alien tourist in the city, either, so the cover worked perfectly well. 

After dark fell, Flavia undertook her real assignment: breaking into the facility of a small, apparently innocuous tech company, hack into its network, and determine whether it was truly a front for human supremacist terrorists, as her superiors in Hierarchy Intelligence suspected. 

The electronic security on the building was no difficulty for Flavia’s military-grade decryption software, and the automated security bots inside failed to see through Flavia’s tactical cloak. So far, so good. 

The first inkling that the mission might not be routine comes when she’s hacked into the on-site servers, and notices a few odd traces in the system: an access that vanishes as quickly as it appears, a file that moves while she’s looking at it. 

It could be someone else hacked into the system; it could be some diligent worker staying late. None of it interferes with Flavia’s own efforts to scan and download files, so she doesn’t think much of it. 

Then, just when she’s preparing to wrap up and exit just as quietly as she entered, an alarm blares. 

Flavia’s shocking, sheer terror quickly transmutes into fury. She’s absolutely positive that _she_ didn’t trigger anything. No matter who did, though, she needs to leave _now_ , and her fingers fly over the console’s interface, erasing any trace of her presence. As a red light on the ceiling starts blinking, she sends a shock from her omni-tool to kill the camera for good, turns on her cloak, and heads toward the door. 

Out in the corridors, the security bots are now on high alert. She has to disable two of them as she makes her way toward her exit point. Then a bright light starts pulsing near the ceiling, and a brief power surge rattles Flavia where she stands. All her own electronics whine in protest and go down. Including the electronic cloak that keeps her invisible. 

Flavia bites back a curse and sets off at a run. As she rounds a corner and starts down a new passage, she sees a group of bots step into the end of the corridor in front of her, including a trio of four-legged mechs set low to the ground. They charge toward her as soon as they register her presence. Flavia curses again, fires off a couple of shots at the bots, and takes a sharp left down another corridor, gathering herself up for a full sprint. 

But she doesn’t make it far before four more being hurtle into the corridor in front of her, and the mission entirely stops being routine. 

Flavia’s first, blurred impression is that they are green-skinned humans wearing armor and carrying an assortment of archaic weapons. But green is not a natural skin tone for humans, she knows this, and after a blink, she is not certain that they are wearing armor at all. 

Her steps slow while she stares at them, picking up on details: none of that head-fluff that humans normally have, no protuberant noses, larger eyes. She doesn’t entirely lose momentum, though, and by the time her brain concludes that these are not humans at all, she is only a few paces from them. 

“Who are you?” she calls out. 

They stare at each other, apparently confused. The tallest of them activates an omni-tool. Behind her, Flavia hears movement; she steals a glance over her shoulder to find the quadrupedal mechs tearing after her. 

“Move!” she shouts to the beings ahead of her, putting on another burst of speed. Three of them scatter out of her way; the fourth, still fiddling with his omni-tool, doesn’t move fast enough. Running, Flavia clips him with her shoulder and they both tumble to the floor. She rolls off and springs to her feet immediately, aiming at the mechs pursuing her. She doesn’t fire, though, stunned by the sight of the other three green people taking the mechs to pieces. 

They fight in a way which is clearly coordinated, moving around each other and controlling space with an ease only attainable through long practice. Their metal and wood weapons may look primitive, but one slices into a mech with a keen blade, another rams something with a point into another mech’s joint, and the third, weapons whizzing in the air, springs off the wall and leaves the third mech a battered heap of electronics. 

They clearly do not need her assistance. But Flavia’s eye is drawn to another flash of movement, one of the bipedal bots entering the corridor. She takes aim and fires, quickly exploding the unit’s head. 

Turning to find that the tallest of the beings has gotten up, she says, “I apologize for running into you.” 

Brown eyes flick from the omni-tool toward her and back. “No problem,” it — he? — says, in one of the local standard human languages. She’s relieved to find that he speaks a language her translator can understand, although it only makes her more baffled. How could the humans have made contact with a new sentient species without anyone knowing? Humans love to tell the entire galaxy about their accomplishments. They coudn’t possibly keep such a thing secret. 

“We should leave quickly, before the other mechs catch up with us.” 

He nods. “Agreed, but there’s too many of them the way we came.” 

“Wait just a minute,” says one of the others — the shortest, broad and densely muscular, mouth screwed up in something that looks like a human frown. “Where’d you come from? Who are you?” 

“There’s no time for this,” says one of the others. 

“This alien cut us off! We woulda been out of here by now if it wasn’t for them!” 

“And I would have been out of there by now if someone hadn’t set off the alarm,” Flavia snaps back. 

They look at each other in confusion. The tallest one clears his throat and, looking at his omni-tool, repeats what she just said in their own language. Their demeanor changes immediately, shifting from tense to guilty. “She’s right, though,” he adds. “We have to go.” 

As if summoned by words, a cluster of bots pours into the corridor behind them, and they all run. 

Her new companions move quickly. Flavia has always been a good runner, and keeps up with them without much strain. Fighting with them is another story. The four of them work well together, but they dart in and close with their enemies, forcing her to confine her fire to more distant opponents for fear of hitting one of them. While she’s cautiously lining up her shots, one of the bots gets in a lucky shot of its own, catching her at a weak spot in her lightweight armor, just above the elbow. The pain is only a brief shock, as her armor swiftly releases medi-gel to stop the bleeding and numb the wound, but that round is going to have to come out. 

She doesn’t complain, though. They finally make their way out of the building, into the darkened alleys around, and Flavia says, “Now that we’re out of there, I’d like to ask again: who are you?” 

“Sorry, sister, we’re not sticking around for questions,” the short one says, jumping for the fire escape on the side of the next building. 

“Where are you from?” she calls back. “How did the humans find a new species?” 

He stops, and the other three look at each other while the tallest one translates. He adds, replying to her, “We’re not actually a new species, per se. We’re from Earth.” 

Flavia blinks at that. “How is that possible?” 

The one with the swords steps closer to the tallest one, and they confer for a moment in low voices. “That’s kind of a long story,” the tall one finally says. “But we’d need to know, who are you?” 

They’re staring at her with sharp, curious eyes, and they’ve shifted to points where they could easily surround her. Flavia sighs. If they were a new species, she’d be obligated to report the fact to her superiors; even if they’re somehow something else, her superiors will want to know. Flavia’s a good intelligence agent, and she can tell when she needs to give something up to get the intel she needs. “Flavia Kandros, Turian Hierarchy Intelligence.” 

They all blink at her. “You’re a turian spy,” the tall one says in a tone of wonder. 

“I’m here to determine whether that facility is a front for human terrorists.” 

“It is,” he says. 

“It so is,” agrees one of the others. 

Flavia tilts her head, her interest piqued. “Do you have evidence of that? Because—” Her arm throbs, as adrenalin and medi-gel start to wear off, and she grips her injured arm with a curse. 

“I didn’t realize you were injured!” the tall one says, reaching toward her. 

“If she’s an alien, can she go to a regular hospital?” the one in orange asks. 

“A good hospital should be able to treat me,” Flavia says, “but I am undercover, and would prefer not to answer questions there.” She grimaces. “It’s a simple enough wound. I could probably remove the round myself.” 

They exchange glances again, and the shortest one sighs and drops off the fire escape. 

“Don’t worry about it,” says the tall one. 

# 

Donatello explains their situation while he’s working on her arm. 

They took her home first, of course, and Flavia consented to be blindfolded, even though it was clear they were moving below street level, through a powerful stench that fills her with alarm for the state of her home. 

Once they’ve uncovered her eyes, however, she finds herself in a perfectly clean and serviceable infirmary or laboratory, filled with odds and ends of electronics. Donatello works with steady hands and a calm demeanor, removing the shot from her arm and stitching the wound closed without any signs of squeamishness. It’s more than Flavia can say for some of the field medics she’s encountered. And while he does, he explains who and what they are, and why they live as they do. 

“You realize the idea of mutated human hybrids sounds very implausible,” she says when he’s done. 

Donatello laughs and moves to the sink to wash his hands. “Oh, believe me, I know.” 

“Surely you don’t truly need to live in secret this way?” 

He pauses in the act of drying his hands. “We do have human friends,” he says slowly. “We can trust them to keep our secret. But I’m not so sure I trust humanity at large.” 

Flavia hums, acknowledging that. Certainly, for her own people, humans are sometimes a difficult topic: officially allies, but frequently obstreperous, pushy, and self-centered. 

“Humans haven’t been in contact with the galaxy for all that long,” Donatello says. “A lot of humans still aren’t comfortable with the idea of intelligent beings different than they are. Which reminds me—” He crosses to one of his machines, pushes a few buttons, and pops out a storage disk, which he hands to her. “This is everything we’ve got on the people we were both investigating tonight. They’ve got their hands in all sorts of business. Maybe you can do something useful with this information.” 

Flavia stares in shock, her fingers curling around the disk. “Thank you. I don’t know if I can repay you for this.” 

His shoulders rise and fall. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.” 

“I disagree. Hierarchy Intelligence should find this very useful.” She hesitates, considering her options. “I’m not authorized to offer you asylum,” she says at last, “but I could make inquiries.” 

His forehead puckers. “Asylum?” 

Flavia chooses her words deliberately. “It might be possible for you to come live in turian space. You could live publicly, work, obtain an education. As turian citizens or clients, probably. I’m not a legal specialist, but there may be some precedents. If… well, you clearly have a life here, but if you wish to change your circumstances… as I said, I could inquire.” 

Donatello takes a deep breath. “I’ll need to talk this over with my brothers.” 

# 

In the end, Donnie tells Flavia no. 

They did talk about it, the four of them with Splinter, round and round, and he could see that they were all torn. Splinter said it was entirely their decision, and if the four of them chose to go, he would accompany them. Mikey was enthusiastic about it until Raph pointed out that turians were known for their discipline. Leo looked a little wistful at that. 

For Donnie himself — on the one hand, there was the opportunity to live and work freely, to attend university. The idea of living in the sun, studying and working and arguing with others, was so powerful Donnie could almost taste it. 

But then again — there was April, and Casey, and their other human friends. New York City was _home_ in a way that nowhere else could ever be. 

“I understand,” Flavia says. Her mandibles twitch. “I do thank you for intel.” 

“You’re welcome,” Donnie says, wondering if he’ll regret this choice in a day, or a week, or a month. 

“The offer stands open, regardless,” Flavia adds, as if she’s reading his mind. Her mandibles flick again, in a kind of smile. “In any case, I owe you a favor.” 

“Not really,” Donnie says. “If Raph hadn’t tripped the alarm, you would have got out just fine.” 

“Still,” she says. “I would have regretted never meeting you, and I owe you a favor for the intel as much as anything else. You have my contact details, so if there’s anything you need that I can provide—” 

“I’ll let you know,” Donnie says, grateful, even though he knows they’ll never take her up on this offer.


End file.
